Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Rain, rain, rain!

Starting on Sunday, September 15, we have had almost
continuous rain for ten days straight.As of now, we have received over 4 feet (1.2 meters) of the wet
stuff.Twice we’ve exceeded a foot in 24
hours.This has been the result of
Tropical Storm/Typhoon Usadi (Odette here in the Philippines) which must have
been a monster because the eye never got within 500 kilometers of us as best we
can tell.

As you should know, the island of Corregidor is mostly hills
and cliffs, so most of the water manages to get to the ocean rather
quickly.But there are a few flat areas, man-made except for Bottomside, where it can take a while for the water to
either soak in or find its way down the hill.

We went for a walk after one of the heavier rains and took a
number of pictures that we want to share with you.We started at Middleside Barracks just above
our house, went to the major gun batteries along the road, went down to
Bottomside, and then finished around our house.We apologize that the pictures in some cases aren’t clearer, but they
were taken during the rain.Also, there
has been a humidity haze, almost a fog, which is easy to see with the naked eye
but just make some of the pictures look fuzzy.

When you walk around the island after major rains you hear
the rush of running water and see waterfalls that are only there for very brief
periods, except in this case where it JUST WON’T STOP RAINING!.We jokingly refer to one such waterfall as
Little Eaton Rapids, since the city of Eaton Rapids, Michigan, USA, where we
lived before moving here, claims to be the only Eaton Rapids in the world.It has been running steadily since this
period of rain began.

Little Eaton Rapids (left)

The gun pit below Battery Hearn is fuller than we have ever
seen it.The swimming pool which was
part of the Officer’s Club area at Topside has several feet of water in
it.The most amazing for us was the
completely flooded Battery Geary area.We saw the center crater filled before, during the typhoons of 2009, but
the water was not nearly as deep as this rain produced.

So take a look at the pictures, and remember us here on
Corregidor, especially those of you who live in areas that would never come
close to having this much water in such a short time period.

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About Me

We retired in our mid-50's and moved to Corregidor, a WWII battlesite in the Philippines. Steve's father Walter fought and was captured there by the Japanese, but survived the war. Steve wrote a book about his father, "HONOR, COURAGE, FAITH: A Corregidor Story," which is available in paperback in the Philippines, and on Amazon Kindle worldwide.
Steve and Marcia loved to entertain guests on Corregidor and take them to out-of-the-way places on the island. They also host tours for Valor Tours, LTD of San Francisco.